How much weight can you actually lose in one day?

Dewymorning

I know, I know, "Don't weigh yourself daily"

I know that water weight and the content of your stomach can make a difference.

How much can you actually lose in one day? Is it possible to lose 1 or 2 pounds, or is such a quick change going to be water weight or a change in the contents of your stomach/intestine.

Last week I was 160 pounds, however on Monday I went to a restaurant with my friends, and the meal was quite salty. So even though I weighed myself as having gone up to 161 pounds I discounted that weight gain as being water weight and did not record it.

Then after having a few healthy days, yesterday I weighed in at 159 pounds, which shows up as a 1 pound lose from my previous weight.

Then this morning I weighed myself again and I am 157.5 pounds.

It seems like a lot to lose just in one day, even though I went to the gym yesterday and didn't eat all my exercise calories back.

Did I actually lose weight the quick, or is it more like I lost 2.5 pounds over the whole week, and the water weight just disguised it.

Thanks.

jwdieter

Nothing wrong with weighing yourself daily.

If you worked at it, you could probably lose 12+ lbs in a day of water weight.

erickirb

How much fat, muscle, or water weight? Or do you mean just weight in general. Some weight class competing sports athletes cut as much as 10lbs in a day or so to make weight, 99% of that would be water weight though.

KateK8LoseW8

Fluctuations can easily disguise true weight loss. This week I "lost" 3 pounds over two days. I absolutely know that isn't true, because that's impossible considering my intake for those two days. I just let go of some water weight, pooped more than usual, and didn't have much salt.

keem88

depends how big of a dump you take

likitisplit

I was about to say, that I've lost a pound in 20 minutes on the toilet, but it looks like that has been covered.

climbing_trees

I weigh myself every day and then take the average for my weekly weigh ins.
Keeping a copy of the data in a spreadsheet helps me see where I've come from and picture where I'm going. This is my chart. (oops, part of the end is cut off but you get the idea~)

rb16fitness

This was in a post yesterday on why it doesn't make sense to be a slave to the scale. The guy lost 12kg:

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/how-ross-edgley-lost-12kg-in-24-hours/story-fneuzkvr-1226761474692

_jayciemarie_

I record my weight every Thursday, but I do weigh myself every day. Today is the heaviest I have been all week--I weighed in at exactly 194, but earlier this week I was 192.4. It fluctuates. I've lost 3.8lbs since last Thursday. Do I really believe I lost 3.8lbs? Probably not. I bet next week I only record .5 loss or something along those lines. It all evens out in my opinion.

jayladey

you're not supposed to weigh yourself every day yo. the reason why? because people can fluctuate from 1 pound to like...14 pounds. depends how much you eat, how much water your body is holding onto..etc.

Holly_Roman_Empire

How much fat, muscle, or water weight? Or do you mean just weight in general. Some weight class competing sports athletes cut as much as 10lbs in a day or so to make weight, 99% of that would be water weight though.

This. Losing a lot of weight in one day is not impossible, as is gaining a lot of weight in one day. But I'm sure you're mostly interested in fat loss, right? It depends how much person to person.

Francl27

I read somewhere that your fat cells fill with water before you shed them... so basically even if you lost 3 lbs of water in one day, it means a big part of it could have been fat at one point. I mean, I eat 20% under my TDEE and don't lose any weight for 3 weeks... then I lose 4-6 lbs in one week (record is 3 lbs in one day, I think). Can't all be water weight.

emmad2

my weight can fluctuate by about 5-6lbs throughout the course of the day

nytrifisoul

How much fat, muscle, or water weight? Or do you mean just weight in general. Some weight class competing sports athletes cut as much as 10lbs in a day or so to make weight, 99% of that would be water weight though.

Ive heard figures of cutting around 20-30lbs.

fat2fitdancody

I read this the other day, a sports scientist lost 24 lbs in 24 hours:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2507184/I-lost-nearly-2-stone-24-HOURS-Sport-scientist-proves-rapid-weight-loss-IS-possible-youre-prepared-exercise-wearing-bin-bags-eat-carbs-drink-nothing.html

Danny_Boy13

Fighters lose 10's of lbs before they weight in but put almost all of it back on within 24hrs. All water weight though.

cwolfman13

weight loss is a general trend over time...you can lose and gain quite a bit day to day with natural fluctuations...these fluctuations can easily mask true fat loss...thus weight loss and weight control in general should be viewed as a trend over time, not a day to day or week to week linear function.

coolraul07

Can you lose that much in 1 day, yes. The key question is, "What was the composition of said weight loss?" I can gain 5-7# in 24 hours, and I can lose up to 6# during a 2-3 hour cardio session.

Showcase_Brodown

Well, given that a pound of fat equals about 3500 calories...

Divide the number of calories you burn in a day (Your TDEE) by 3500. It should give you how many pounds you could theoretically lose by not eating anything.

If you burn 2000 in a day, 2000/3500 = .57 pounds.
Extrapolate that out to a week and you have about 4. Not recommended!

This is too perfect though. It doesn't account for anything like water weight, digestive contents, glycogen, muscle loss.... or any other factors.

likitisplit

A serious answer? If you lose 2# of fat a week, with a healthy diet and exercise to maintain your muscle, then you will be losing an average of 4.5 ounces a day.

Dewymorning

Well, given that a pound of fat equals about 3500 calories...

Divide the number of calories you burn in a day (Your TDEE) by 3500. It should give you how many pounds you could theoretically lose by not eating anything.

If you burn 2000 in a day, 2000/3500 = .57 pounds.
Extrapolate that out to a week and you have about 4. Not recommended!

This is too perfect though. It doesn't account for anything like water weight, digestive contents, glycogen, muscle loss.... or any other factors.

A serious answer? If you lose 2# of fat a week, with a healthy diet and exercise to maintain your muscle, then you will be losing an average of 4.5 ounces a day.

Thank you for giving me a serious answers, this was the kind of info I was looking for.

From these answers it seems to me that the answer is that I was slowly losing fat over the whole of this week, but it only just showed up on the scales these past two days.

My main reason for the question was that I was surprised at how much I had lost this morning, thinking that my weight decrease yesterday had accounted for any gain from water retention, and so I was concerned that I had overestimated my calorie intake, or something.

However your answers suggest that even if I had overestimated my calorie intake it would not have led to that big of a decrease in fat content.

I want to lose weight at a healthy rate.

I weigh myself every day because I just want to learn how my body works and everything like that. And the statistician in me wants MORE DATA, MORE DATA.

Hehehe.